26 April 1858 – 2 May 1858

A little snow in the night, which is seen against the fences this morning. See a chewink (male) in the Kettell place woods.

It has been so cold since the 23d that. I have not been able to catch a single frog, have hardly seen where one jumped, as I walked through the mead- ows looking for them, though in some warmer places I heard a low stertorous R. halecina-like note from a few. The tortoises are stirring much more. Frogs appear to love warm and moist weather, rainy or cloudy. They will sit thickly along the shore, appar- ently small bullfrogs, etc., R. palustris. My young fishes had the pectoral fins and tail very early developing, but not yet can I detect any other fins with my glass. They had mouths, which I saw them open as soon as hatched, and more and more a perch-like head. I think that with Hoar’s microscope I detected two dorsal fins such as the perch have. When I put them suddenly in the sun they sink and rest on the bottom a moment. In the French work for schools of Edwards and Comte, it is said that the perch spawns not till the age of three years, and in the spring. “The ova are joined together by some glutinous matter in long strings (cor- dons) intertwined with the reeds.”’ (Page 36.) I noticed yesterday that again the newly laid spawn at the cold pool on Hubbard’s land was all gone, and that in the larger pool south of it was much diminished. What creature devours it? Snows hard in afternoon and evening. Quite wintry. About an inch on ground the next morning.

Blustering northwest wind and wintry aspect. A. M. — Down river to look at willows. The common S. cordata apparently not yet within two days at least. This salix is not always conspicuously double-scaled, nor is the scale carried up on the catkin. It is not always even on that of the S. Torreyana.

P. M.—I carry the rest of my little fishes, fifteen or twenty, to the cold pool in Hubbard’s ground. They are about a quarter-inch long still, and have scarcely increased in length. I learn that one farmer, seeing me standing a long time still in the midst of a pool (I was watching for hylodes), said that it was his father, who had been drinking some of Pat Haggerty’s rum, and had lost his way home. So, setting out to lead him home, he discovered that it was I. I find a Fringilla melodia nest with five eggs. Part, at least, must have been laid before the snow of the 27th, but it is perfectly sheltered under the shelving turf and grass on the brink of a ditch. The snow would not even have touched the bird sitting on them.

A warm and pleasant day, reminding me of the 3d of April when the R. halecina waked up so suddenly and generally, and now, as then, apparently a new, allied frog is almost equally wide awake, — the one of last evening (and before). When I am behind Cheney’s this warm and still afternoon, I hear a voice calling to oxen three quarters of a mile distant, and I know it to be Elijah Wood’s. It is wonderful how far the individual proclaims him- self. Out of the thousand millions of human beings on this globe, I know that this sound was made by the lungs and larynx and lips of E. Wood, am as sure of it as if he nudged me with his elbow and shouted in my ear. He can impress himself on the very atmosphere, then, can launch himself a mile on the wind, through trees and rustling sedge and over rippling water, as- sociating with a myriad sounds, and yet arrive distinct at my ear; and yet this creature that is felt so far, that was so noticeable, lives but a short time, quietly dies and makes no more noise that I know of. I can tell him, too, with my eyes by the very gait and motion of him half a mile distant. Far more wonderful his purely spiritual influence, — that after the lapse of thousands of years you may still detect the individual in the turn of a sentence or the tone of a thought! ! E. Wood has a peculiar way of modulating the air, imparts to it peculiar vibrations, which several times when standing near him I have noticed, and now a vibration, spread- ing far and wide over the fields and up and down the river, reaches me and maybe hundreds of others, which we all know to have been produced by Mr. Wood’s pipes. However, E. Wood is not a match for a little peeping hylodes in this respect, and there is no peculiar divinity in this. The inhabitants of the river are peculiarly wide awake this warm day, — fishes, frogs, and toads, from time to time, — and quite often I hear a tremendous rush of a pickerel after his prey. They are peculiarly active, maybe after the Rana palustris, now breeding. It is a perfect frog and toad day. I hear the stertorous notes of last evening from all sides of the river at intervals, but most from the grassiest and warmest or most sheltered and sunniest shores. I get sight of ten or twelve Rana palustris and catch three of them. One apparent male utters one fine, sharp squeak when caught. Also see by the shore one apparent young bull- frog (?), with bright or vivid light green just along its jaws, a dark line between this and jaws, and a white throat; head, brown above. This is the case with one I have in the firkin, which I think was at first a dull green. These are the only kinds I find sitting along the river. ‘The Rana palustris is the prevailing one, and I suppose it makes the halecina-like sound described last night.1 They will be silent for a long time. You will see perhaps one or two snouts and eyes above the surface, then at last may hear a coarsely purring croak, often rapid and as if it began with a p:p, at a distance sounding softer and like tut tut, tut tut, tut, lasting a second or two; and then, perchance, others far and near will be excited to utter similar sounds, and all the shore seems alive with them. However, I do not as yet succeed to see one make this sound. Then there may be another pause of fifteen or thirty minutes. The Rana palustris leaves a peculiar strong scent on the hand, which reminds me of days when I went a-fishing for pickerel and used a frog’s leg for bait. When I try to think what it smells like, I am inclined to say that it might be the bark of some plant. It is disagreeable. Some are in the water, others on the shore. I do not see a single R. halecina. What has become of the thousands with which the meadows swarmed a month ago? ‘They have given place to the R. palus- tris. Only their spawn, mostly hatched and dissolving, remains, and I expect to detect the spawn of the palustris soon. I find many apparent young bullfrogs in the shaded pools on the Island Neck.’ There is one good-sized bullfrog among them.’ The toads are so numerous, some sitting on all sides, that their ring is a continuous sound throughout the day and night, if it is warm enough, as it now is, except perhaps in the morning. It is as uninterrupted to the ear as the rippling breeze or the circulations of the air itself, for when it dies away on one side it swells again on another, and if it should suddenly cease all men would exclaim at the pause, though they might not have noticed the sound itself. It occurs to me that that early purple grass on pools corresponds to the color of leaves acquired after the frosts in the fall, as if the cold had, after all, more to do with it than is supposed. As the tops of the Juncus filiformis are red, and the first Lysimachia quadrifolia red-brown. As I sit above the Island, waiting for the Rana palus- tris to croak, I see many minnows from three quarters to two inches long, but mostly about one inch. They have that distinct black line along each side from eye to tail on a somewhat transparent brownish body, dace-like, and a very sharply forked tail. When were they hatched? Certainly two or three months ago, at least; perhaps last year. Is it not the brook min- now? I also hear the myrtle-birds on the Island woods. Their common note is somewhat like the chill-lill or Jingle of the F. hyemalis. Ephemere quite common over the water. Suddenly a large hawk sailed over from the Assabet, which at first I took for a hen-harrier, it was so neat a bird and apparently not very large. It was a fish hawk, with a very conspicuous white crown or head and a uniform brown above elsewhere; beneath white, breast and belly. Probably it was the male, which is the smaller and whiter beneath. A wedge-shaped tail. He alighted on a dead elm limb on Prichard’s ground, and at this distance, with my glass; I could see some dark of head above the white of throat or breast. He was incessantly looking about as if on his guard. After fifteen minutes came a crow from the Assabet and alighted cawing, about twenty rods from him, and ten minutes later another. How alert they are to detect these great birds of prey! They do not thus pursue ordinary hawks, and their attendance alone might suggest to unskillful observers the presence of a fish hawk or eagle. Some crows up the Assabet evidently knew that .he was sitting on that elm far away. He sailed low almost directly over my boat, fishing. His wings had not obviously that angular form which I thought those of another had the other day. The old Salix sericea is now all alive with the hum of honey-bees. This would show that it is in bloom. I see and hear one humblebee among them, inaugu- rating summer with his deep bass. May it be such a summer to me as it suggests. It sounds a little like mockery, however, to cheat me again with the promise of such tropical opportunities. I have learned to sus- pect him, as I do all fortune-tellers. But no sound so brings round the summer again. It is like the drum of May training. This reminds me that men and boys and the most enlightened communities still love to march after the beating of a drum, as do the most aboriginal of savages. Two sternotheruses which I catch emit no scent yet. Hear a thrasher. Hear that a shad-bush is out at Lee’s Cliff.

Sit without fire to-day and yesterday. I compare the three Rana palustris caught yester- day with the male and female of April 23d. The males agree very well. What I have regarded as the ground- work varies from pale brown to dusky brown, even in the same specimen at different times. The present female is larger than that of April 23d, more than half an inch longer than her male, and she has the round dark spots on the orbits and one in front on head and also oblong-square spots on back. She is also dusky-brown like male. None of all have any green. I at last hear the note, for two are coupled in a firkin in my chamber, under my face. It is made by the male alone, and is, as I supposed, the sound of April 30th and May Ist, — the tut tut tut, more or less rapidly re- peated, and a frequent querulous or inquisitive cr-r-rack, half a second long. It makes these sounds only when I excite it by putting others of its kind near it. Its pouches are distended laterally, apparently beneath and behind the eye, and not very conspicuous. Close by, it sounds like a dry belching sound, the bursting of little bubbles more or less rapidly, and the querulous note may be the same very rapidly repeated. I doubt if I have heard any sound from a bullfrog in river yet. P. M. — Down river. The Salix Babylonica (fertile) behind Dodd’s is more forward than the alba by my boat. Put it just before it. See stake-driver. At mouth of the Mill Brook, I hear, I should say, the true R. halecina croak, 1. e. with the faint bullfrog-like er-er-er intermixed. Are they still breeding? Peetweet on a rock. See and hear the red-wings in flocks yet, making a great noise. If I were to be a frog hawk for a month I should soon know some things about the frogs. How patiently they skim the meadows, occasionally alighting, and fluttering as if it were difficult ever to stand still on the ground. I have seen more of them than usual since I too have been looking for frogs. Hear a tree-toad.